Decade-old FREAK bug leaves Google and Apple device users vulnerable

A team of security researchers unearthed a decade-old vulnerability called the FREAK (Factoring attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys) attack, which impacts Google and Apple device users who may have visited websites, including Whitehouse.gov and NSA.gov, according to a Washington Postreport. One of the researchers who spotted the vulnerability told the Post that “Of the 14 million Web sites worldwide that offer encryption, more than 5 million remained vulnerable as of Tuesday morning.”

According to Matthew Green, a cryptographer and research professor at Johns Hopkins University who has been looking into the flaw, the security researchers found serious vulnerabilities in the security protocols used by the Safari browser and the browser found in Android devices. These protocols are used to encrypt data through secure network connections between websites and browsers.

Even though the Android browser in question uses the OpenSSL protocol and Safari uses the Apple TLS/SSL protocols, both…